Bradford Literature Festival to hold next weekend, but a few people are cancelled. (Image via BBC)

Why Did Writers Withdraw From the Bradford Literature Festival?

Toska Dhia Andana
Sports & Culture
Events & Festivals
Jun 22, 2019
2381
It is reported that six writers and activist have cancelled their appearance at the Bradford Literature Festival. All of them were supposed to be speakers at the event. Bradford Literature Festival will be held next weekend, but the writers and activists announced their withdrawal just this week.

Bradford Literature Festival is an annual festival, where they have 500 events and holds for 10 days. During the festival, there will be a lot of authors, poets, musicians and artists to hold discussions with the audience. Bradford Literature Festival was founded in 2014 and has been held since then. During the previous festivals, the case of withdrawal has never happened before, so what happen with this year?

Writers and activists found out that the festival is funded by a Home Office program. Home Office is owned by a ministerial department. They have a counter-extremism strategy program called Building a Stronger Britain Together (BSBT) which provides funding and support of groups involved in counter-extremism projects in their community.

The first one to withdraw was Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, a Muslim Bradford-born poet. She stated that the government strategy treated all Muslims as potential criminals. Hence, she denies taking part of a festival that is funded by them. Other than Manzoor-Khan, there are other writers and activists as well; there are Lola Olufemi, Waithera Sebatindira, Malia Bouattia, Sahar al-Faifi and Hussein Kesvani.

The organizers of the festival think that they are regretted that many artists decided not to come. However, they defend themselves by saying that Building a Stronger Britain Together fund is used for pre-festival education project for those who are in need. The director of the festival, Syima Aslam revealed that half of the audience from last year was families with a household income of less than £40,000. Therefore, the program is helping low-income families as well.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/20/six-pull-out-bradford-literature-festival-counter-extremism-funding

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